


Wait For Me, I'll Be There Soon

by sam_dean_and_me



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Caring Jensen Ackles, Creature Jensen Ackles, Human/Monster Romance, Hurt Jared Padalecki, M/M, Naga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_dean_and_me/pseuds/sam_dean_and_me
Summary: It is said that the neurotoxin of a cobra's venom paralyses a human heart, and rots the body until a man is nothing but a corpse. In Jared's case though, when the green eyed monster sinks his teeth into his skin, his ashy heart blushes a shade of red, beats, and seeks out the god that's been lost in time. Because in the end, it was always the god that needed to be saved.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 25
Kudos: 234
Collections: 2020 Supernatural Reversebang Challenge





	1. I feel something in the air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merakieros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merakieros/gifts).



You can find the arts of the amazing artist here:

<https://t.co/yi3iQo2nL4>

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<https://t.co/yi3iQo2nL4>

[](https://ibb.co/17Rs29L)

“How are you feeling today Jared?” 

Her hair is a very irritating shade of brown. Almost dirty blond but not quite. It scratches at Jared’s brain like a taunt. “I’m good.” 

She isn’t convinced, made obvious by how she looks pointedly at his greasy hair and unshaved face, a tight smile at her lips. Adjusting the thick black glasses on her nose, she leans on the table more.  
“Are you getting enough sleep?” 

“Yes.” 

“So the sleeping meds are working.”  
“Yes, but they don’t work there.” There’s the signature indulging smile making an appearance. Jared knows exactly what she’s gonna say next, so instead of listening to her words, Jared lets his mind take him outside this room, away from white and cement and into memories full of colors and magic. They’re memories, he knows they’re memories; no matter how scared he is of them being just dreams that he’ll forget someday, something tells him that he never will.  
He took this appointment voluntarily, takes all the appointments willingly, but that doesn’t mean he likes them. One reason is that they haven’t done anything yet that’ll tell him that he’s crazy, that there’s any other explanation. 

“Jared?” 

He hums and realizes that she’s expecting an answer from him. “I asked how your paper is going.”  
Ahh, the paper. “It’s going good. Should be published on schedule.” It will, and it will be one of the most significant journals on serpent studies that nobody will pay attention to. He doesn’t wanna talk about it.  
The therapist, Ms. Blake, tells him very seriously about how he should be careful about his meds, advises some mind games that’ll help him fill the gaps in his memories and tells him “See you next time.”  
Jared doesn’t return the sentiment. Who knows what could happen tomorrow, right? 

Jared Padalecki’s story is one of those stories that students use to amplify how being too invested in studies can drive you nuts. Not literally, of course; it’s not like he’s a physicist or some other real scientist. He’s just an archeologist, someone that digs dirt and takes pictures of rocks. But still, the few people that do know the story almost always put the blame on taking knowledge too seriously; a grade A student hitting his first few expeditions head on, on a roll one after another until it becomes one too many and the brain snaps from too much pressure. His parents would beg to differ though. They always knew that this would happen, that’s why they always told him to get a grip. He never listened, behaving as if they were his enemies. If only he was more like his brother, they would have both their sons. 

They aren’t totally wrong; Jared has to give them that. He did rebel a lot growing up. For instance, he refused to get his first date a pink frilly gift, instead got her a basketball. He also chose a ‘not a subject’ subject in college, and a lot of other instances between these two. But anthropology isn’t just a choice to piss his parents off though; from the minute he entered his history class in elementary school, he’s wanted to touch history, to get his hands on Santa Maria and King Tut. 

But when Jared gets the acceptance letter to investigate the origin of snake worship and its influence in modern culture, he can feel his anxiety rush. This is going to be different from his previous projects; searching for Nefertiti in the valley of kings, with tons of theories and circumstantial clues to guide him, is not the same as digging through thousands of years of mythologies worldwide, woven everywhere from medicine to astronomy. 

He’s nervous, of course, but he’s also thrilled. This is what he spent years in the library for, getting his hands on the ruins of one history after another. And there are very few other cultures as wide-spread and influential as these symbolic reptiles. 

His mom, of course, isn’t as thrilled to know that just after spending months in Egypt’s burning sun; her son is now going to be spending months in jungles searching for various snake entities. 

“You do know that snakes are venomous right? They can kill you.” 

“I’ll be careful mom. It’s not like I’m gonna be handling actual snakes.” Jared grunts out, balancing a bowl of mac and cheese in one hand and a cartoon of juice in the other, closing the fridge door with his hip. “just sculptures and texts mostly” 

His mom bypasses the last sentence in favor of the first one. “Which are in jungles? Jared, is this what you’ll spend your life doing?” her tone changes from accusatory and loud to a soft soothing tone, like she’s about to do him a favor that he won’t like. 

“Your father is looking for a CEO.” 

The urge to remind her that he has a job, one that pays all his bills and takes him around the world is strong, but Jared refrains. Doing that will only lead to being reminded that his paycheck has less zeros and that he doesn’t have an office. And of course, “These things don’t matter” she says in unison with Jared’s mind.  
Obviously his mood is leaning towards very bad when he’s finally done being reminded that he’s the only man in his family that isn’t serious enough about being a man. He’s almost pissed at himself for letting her ruin it for him, for still feeling like a lost child in the face of discipline. The bad mood continues through his nightly process, finally letting up when he burrows under the covers and starts thinking about green mountains and stony sculptures. 

His schedule is to gather data from Asia first, because that’s the continent with the largest and arguably the most influential traditions relating to serpents. He spends months in various parts of India and Sri Lanka, gains a lot of data and an even darker tan. 

Jared’s partner, Susanne, is a tiny post-graduate student. She looks at Jared like she’s scared that he’ll start yelling at her any moment, and looks at him with something else in her eyes when she thinks he’s not looking. He tries not to think too much about that. 

Which doesn’t prove to be too much of a problem. Four days into their travel to Jawi, a remote island in Indonesia, just when they’re getting used to the island set-up enough to start digging around their base a little, things take an unexpected turn. Their main search area is the temple called Candis located on top of a small hill. It’s the most populated part of this area and is often visited by pilgrims and tourists. Which is why when Susanne jerks back from an ancient stone vase she was inspecting, Jared’s head doesn’t immediately ring the danger bells. He puts down the things in his hand and goes to crouch down beside her.

“You ok?” 

She’s clutching her gloved thumb in her right hand, a tiny smear of blood staining the tip. “Uhh …yeah. I think I just got stung by something.” 

“Lemme see” 

“No no!” she says, embarrassed and a little bit panicked. “I’m ok. It was probably just ants or something” Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she returns her focus to the object before her. So Jared lets it drop and goes back to his work. 

A few hours later, Jared’s cursing himself and wishing he could go back in time and tell himself not to drop the matter. Because Susanne’s hand is blue, swollen and a fever is well on its way. 

The local “doctor”, who Jared suspects is actually a compounder in the city, tells them that it was probably a venomous spider. 

“What?” Susanne goes pale as a paper. 

“Spider of the less toxic kind” the doc rushes to assure and proceeds to tell them how the fact that she’s alive after three hours mean that it wasn’t that venomous. Which, yeah, not very reassuring. So Jared doesn’t even think about objecting when Susanne demands to leave as soon as the sun rises. Instead, he makes all the necessary preparations to get her into a hospital ASAP and makes sure that she can go back to the states as soon as she gets clearance from the medics.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” he asks as he boards her in the speedboat. “Yes. I’m sorry that I’m leaving. But I’ll send someone else as soon as I can.’  
“Don’t worry about it. Take care and keep me updated you hear?” 

This is how Jared ends up in the jungle alone, following a map that’s supposed to take him to a Shiva temple that locals believe is natural rather than man-made. It’s two in the afternoon, the sun burning straight over his head. Swiping at droplets of sweat on his forehead, Jared reassesses the map in his hand and his current position. If his calculation is correct, it’ll be at least another hour before he reaches his destination. The grumbling in his stomach is proof that it’s way past lunchtime. 

Looking around for a place to wash his face, he crouches down beside a huge tree of some kind and takes his water bottle out. Despite the water being lukewarm, it’s a much appreciated relief for his overheated skin. He’s swallowing down big gulps of water when something catches his eye. Is that…. ?  
Jared squints hard as he caps the bottle and puts it in his backpack. He checks his map again, and sure enough, there shouldn’t be any structures within at least 5 miles of this place. But he’s standing in front of one. 

Behind a few very old trees, there’s what looks like the ruins of a temple. The huge banyan tree that is hiding the sky from Jared’s view seems to have its roots behind, or rather within, this crumbling structure. Most of the stones and clay bricks are holding their ground though, pillars and slabs jutting out from below ground.  
The most surprising feature, the reason why Jared thinks this is a temple, is the statue. Up front and centre and not covered by leaves and dust, is a stony sculpture of a woman. A woman who’s lower body morphs into a snake. Yup, there is a serpent statue here that apparently nobody has seen yet. The possibility that his map might be a faulty one is far more likely than there being a standing temple that might be thousands of years old that is neither underground nor discovered. 

Jared takes out his recorder from the thigh holster and does the introduction, meaning where he is and the condition of the unexpected structure. “Most serpent cultures around the world mainly worship male serpent gods, also known as nagas, for their strength, rage and protective or healing powers.” Jared recites the literature. “A female serpent, a nagin, is rare. When worshipped, they’re known as the life givers; the one to give and take life, nourish and protect; an ultimate symbol of prosperity. This has to be pre-medieval.”  
He steps on something round and stumbles, almost dropping the little device. Looking down, he finds the object of interference and jerks back when he recognizes it. A bone. 

Staring at the thing doesn’t make it disappear. Instead, he notices that there are bones littering the vicinity of the crumbling structure. “At the foot of the nagin, there are what look like human ribs, not sure.” Jared knows there are snakes in this area, especially cobras….and he doesn’t voice out loud what it could mean if these are indeed human remains. 

He’s trying to decide whether to get closer and inspect the scenario or to go back and do some research before returning, when a noise catches his attention. It’s a soft hiss, kind of like inhaling through closed teeth. His eyes jerk up towards the top of the temple, over the nagin’s head. Other than tree branches and fallen leaves, there’s nothing. Well…. Almost nothing. Because when his eyes fall on the huge bush just a few feet away from him, his heart just about lurches. The skull of a snake is peeking through leaves and branches, its hollowed eyes staring right at Jared. Even dead and decayed, a cobra’s head will freak you out.  
Taking a few deep breaths, Jared tells himself that it’s just a skull. But it doesn’t fool his brain. If there’s a skull, chances aren’t nil of there being a live one. So he takes out a pen, marks the place on his map for good measure, and taking a final encompassing glance, starts on his way to the base. He’ll come back soon. 

_The creature observing Jared from the roof of the temple is deadly sharp in its attention. It watches Jared’s every move with rapt interest, long sinuous body poised and ready to attack. It doesn’t pounce on Jared though, because no matter how territorial it feels, it’s also weirdly intrigued by the tall, odd smelling human in strange clothing. There’s something poking its memories, some dots waiting to be noticed, but now the human is moving and it’s hard to follow two dots at once._

_There’s one moment when the tension on its body suddenly rises, making its tail twitch. It’s when the human first notices the serpent skull among the leaves. But when the skull is left untouched, the moment is broken. It watches in convex vision as the human rubs a stick on some leaves, and then disappears the way it came. If it was a he and not an it at that moment, maybe there’d be a voice, calling the human. What for? Well, that’s a topic for another day. Right now is just for watching a retreating back and not delving into another dimension; a dimension that this creature doesn’t quite know how to walk. His smell lingers in the air for long moments afterwards, and the huge green snake takes hissing breaths, engraving the saline musk in his nostrils and in its neurons.  
Later, after the sun has gone down and the world is painted blessedly dark, the green, sleek, giant will come out on the ground and roam the area, reclaim its ground by leaving spiral tracks. It’ll sniff the stone sculpture, butt it’s head on the foot of it. When everything would be deemed okay by its reptilian senses, it will climb the stairs of the temple and disappear within. Through it all, images of a tall, built man would be running through the synapses of its not-quite-normal brain. ___

__It’s not long at all before Jared is standing in front of the nagin statue again, this time with a larger bag on his back and childlike excitement in his eyes. In a few hours, he’s found a fair share of info about two things.  
1) There was supposedly a nagin called Candir, the daughter of nagraj, in naga nadu of Sri Lanka. She was brought to an island in the pacific by her father and married to the naga here, where she gave birth to her spawn. She was worshipped as the goddess of fertility and water by the locals. The island later went down into the ocean before rising up and merging with Indonesia. There’s no documentation of the island’s current location, and nothing indicates that this specific place might be where the nagin lived. Which means that Jared may just have discovered a whole new historical site.  
  
2) Maybe, discovered isn’t exactly the right word to use. The very few locals that are native to the area know about this temple. According to local belief, this is the final resting place of Candir, where she gained wisdom and passed on to the further. It is said that her tomb and the temple built on it is guarded by her son Jaffn’an. People say that after her passing, her people were riddled with grief and were lost. So she came back to the mortal world in the form of the great tree and whispered to her son his duties. So he built the temple and spent his time here gaining knowledge of the further from his mother. But in the time that came later, something happened that angered the god and he abandoned his people and went underground. Since then the temple and its history have been left untold, lest Jaffn’an might get angry again and create havoc.  
  
In short, this place has been intentionally ignored to the point where people forgot its actual existence. Jared could tell when the story was being narrated to him that people might’ve forgotten the temple, but the fear of infuriating the nag is still very real. In fact, somebody told him that the few people who tried to look for the tree went missing. So Jared very carefully doesn’t reveal that he might’ve set foot on the grounds or that he might actually know how those people disappeared.  
  
‘It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before.’ He tells himself. He’s not doing anything dangerous. He’ll just do some cleaning, get enough evidence to get this place historic attention, and then he can do proper digging with procedures. Till then, nobody needs to panic in fear of a snake taking revenge. No harm to anybody.  
Taking a good look at the statue and noting her posture and appearance, he finally climbs the couple of steps up and into the temple.  
“Entering the subject of interest” he says to maintain professionalism, which he supposes doesn’t work very well since the next few seconds of recording is him coughing his lungs out. The sound of it echoes through the structure and makes startled bats scramble. Damn spider webs.  
After he’s done coughing and sneezing and prying cobwebs with both hands to make a path, Jared can finally see the whole interior. Clearing his throat for good measure, he starts again.  
“The structure itself is built using the tree as base. At the joint of the tree and stone slabs, there is a small platform.” It’s hidden under leaves and mud and dirt, but Jared can tell that there’s a statue of the nagin on the platform. The rest of this place is arguably just rubble and vines and fallen bricks.  
He starts by getting the small statue clean. It takes time, but eventually he’s able to see details. It’s the same goddess from the pedestal outside, but here, she’s sitting in a ring made from her snake body. And through the turns of her tail, a small snake is peeking up, mouth wide open, teeth flared. ‘This must be the enraged son’ Jared thinks. _ _

___The meaning of Jaffn'an is a lyre, a divine musical instrument in patal lok. In naga lok, Jaffn'an means Jensen, a witness. Jensen likes this meaning better. Because he doesn’t play music that heals anymore. In fact, many a times when he makes a sound, the birds get scared and they run away from him. So he tries to control his teeth and tongue so as to not scare the birds.  
But he is a witness. He bears witness to so many things…some of which he’d rather forget. But he knows he can’t. What worries him more is what’ll happen after his time here is up. He needs to pass his memories to someone before he walks. But to whom? Nobody visits this realm anymore. That’s why protecting this temple and mother is so important. Maybe someday, mother will let go of the tree and become herself again, and Jensen will know what to do.  
Jensen wishes she’d hurry up, because the stranger is back and he’s inside the temple now. But he’s not like the other humans, isn’t trying to steal. Instead, he’s cleaning the temple and looking at Jensen’s avatar, almost like he wants to worship Jensen. That could work too. If he prayed to Jensen, then Jensen would know not to take his soul. But he won’t, because he doesn’t know how.  
He tries to do it, to go limp among the root of the tree and wake up in the body of his little avatar. The man would be so surprised; a shocked noise leaving his mouth open for Jensen to dig his fangs in. But something holds him tight within his scaly skin. He hasn’t felt this ‘something’ in so long that he doesn’t know how to overcome it enough to make the shift. So he doesn’t. He wraps himself tighter around the threads of roots and observes. He can take a soul as soon as the soul gives in to corruption, so until then, Jensen will just watch the man clean the temple. _

__The first day goes by in a whir. Jared was skeptical about being able to work alone in such a spooky place, but so far so good. He’s only done one thing so far, just looked at the pedestal and the statue on it very carefully. There’s something scribed on the stone, probably names. Jared will need to contact a language expert soon._ _

  
Jared does a good job of keeping an eye out for time, and manages to get out of the jungle to safety before it’s too dark. Even then, when Jared enters his meager accommodation, the guy getting him food warns him about being out alone at night. “Snakes” he says. “Venomous ones, they can kill you in minutes.”  
  
Jared tells the man that he’s being careful, and cringes internally at just how careless he’s being. But then he remembers the statue and its story and what this could mean, and he doesn’t feel as guilty for lying to the friendly man. It’s for science after all. For a moment, he thinks about calling his parents and letting them know that he’s working in the forest alone just in case. The variety of different responses that would bring makes him grit his teeth. No need to bother anybody.  
The next day, Jared starts for the temple even before the sun is up. And he makes good use of his time, too, cleaning up the pedestal and collecting samples for screening, taking photos to send to the database. There’s lots of scribing on the platform, and Jared makes sure to take clear pictures. He’ll send some of it to his friend back at Stanford, get some insight before getting his department involved. He hasn’t finished that particular thought properly when there’s a sharp pinch on his left shoulder. He sucks in a shocked breath and jerks, twisting a little to get his hand on the burning patch of skin on his shoulder.  
  
When his fingertips come back bloody, he finally puts his magnifying glass down and turns. The sharp burn is spreading from his shoulder already, his entire arm tingling and saliva floods his mouth. He’s about to sit down because his vision is swimming, but freezes midway. The little snake, the one peeking out from the nagin’s body, is looking right at him. Only, it’s not made of stone anymore. Instead, it’s green and blue and its fangs are bloody. Jared gasps but his lungs refuse to expand, a tight ache making his throat close up. The small snake is getting out of its mother’s womb and coming closer to Jared with it's mouth wide open and pupils sharpened like knives, andJared’s world goes dark.  



	2. Though The Shapes are Familiar, In the Shadows of the Quiet Room

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What people say and think about Jensen is only slightly right. For instance, they’re right about his rage, about him watching over the temple, and sometimes even taking souls. But they’re wrong about the concept of it. See, Jensen has never been a killer, being destructively harmful isn’t natural to him. Like all snakes, Jensen only attacks when he’s threatened. When the Aryans had come here with promises of devotion and friendship, he’d embraced them just like his ancestors had embraced all humans. But then. Then they showed their true color. He was, is, furious at humans for being dishonest, for being thieves. That doesn’t mean he goes around hunting people down. He only hunts someone if they try to steal inside the sacred tomb of his mother. 

This human hadn’t shown any interest in stealing. Instead, it had looked like he was rather looking at the walls and the statues, spending much time on the scribing rather than trying to dig. Jensen had no reason to go after him. But then suddenly, something changed. Of course it did; that’s what humans do. They put great efforts into making you believe them before stabbing you in the back. The thought in his mind isn’t just to steal a gem. It’s to steal mother herself. 

He’s surprised by his own speed. It’s been a long time since Jensen has had to wait for something to go wrong before having to react; normally he can smell the adultery in humans before they even set foot on his ground. He’s so overcome with anger that he’s about to go for the man’s neck before his senses start functioning properly again. The man has already fallen to the ground when Jensen’s nostrils flare and his fangs go into their chambers again. There’s something wrong with the man’s blood; it doesn’t taste bitter and rotten like corrupt blood does. Instead, it just tastes ordinary, copper and salt and something quiet, like sadness. Jensen’s triangular head tilts sideways.  
How’s that possible? The man was thinking about stealing! He was thinking about taking mother all the way across the sea. But Jensen knows he’s missing something. His senses don’t lie to him, he’s never been wrong about impure blood. This man isn’t deceitful.  
  
Jensen freezes, goes as still as the unconscious man lying before him. A bunch of small, hard papers fell to the ground when he collapsed. On them, there are various parts of the temple, including the statue and its writings. Was he only thinking about taking these? His blood has already been contaminated, venom from Jensen’s body going into his veins and sucking the life out from within.  
  
The urge to heal and protect is a force that makes Jensen stagger forward, his slender body leaving s-shaped tracks behind himself as he goes closer to the dying man. His eyes are closed, sharp nose twitching a little. A thin line of white foam is dripping from his slightly parted lips that have turned blue. This is nothing that Jensen hasn’t seen in his hundreds of years in isolation. This is the first time that this feels horribly wrong, though. So wrong that his vertebrae ache with the need to fix it. He can’t take a soul that is meant to walk in this realm.  
  
It takes about fifteen minutes for the venom of a king cobra to kill a person. For a nag, that time comes down to within a minute. But there are other perks to being a semigod. Like saving a life before your own venom kills it. 

Anyone who’s seen the tree of Candir will tell you that it’s big, huge even. Its branches and leaves and the vines growing on it cover a vast area, the tree itself looking like an old woman weighed down by the weight on her back. If someone was to find the stairs in the back of the temple and manage to climb down, they’d lose all concept of space or time. The kaaksha, situated deep inside the roots of the old tree, is where dimensions blend and bend, morphing the physical world with a world that is dark, tinged with blue and glowing green lines. In the kaaksha, the time and space of both the realms superimpose, stretching them like an elastic ready to snap.  


Needless to say, whenJared opens his eyes and finds himself in the kaaksha, it takes his eyes a few blinks to adjust to the darkness.  
  
A few years ago, when Jared was just a fresher, he’d visited the lalbagh killa. Overall not a pleasant experience due to just how hot and crowded the old city of Dhaka is, but once he’s entered the actual killa, he’s forgotten all about how many sweaty armpits he’s had to encounter. Most mysterious of the old building is it’s so-called agra tunnel, which supposedly swallowed dogs and men alike if entered. When Jared had entered though, he wasn’t swallowed by the tunnel, but instead with damp air and the stifling stink of closed space.  
  
That’s the scenario his mind is bringing him right now, because he can’t really see anything past the soupy blackness all around. The smell of closed soil is there, but it doesn’t stink; instead it’s a pleasant, almost sweet, scent. Good thing, because he might have thrown up if his nose was suffering too. Head pounding and body burning, the taste of bile is at the back of his throat but he swallows it down. Doesn’t wanna die smelling his own vomit.  
A rustle from somewhere close demandsJared’s attention, but spots have already started to dance on his closed eyelids. Opening them will put too much strain on his chaffed cheeks anyway.

The next time he wakes up, he’s already hoping to go under again before even opening his eyes. The pain is fierce, something sharp and deep through his back and into the lungs. When they squeeze painfully tight, his nerves jingle and force his eyes open. There’s nothing to see, seems like he’s in a void of blackness broken only by roots, brown snaky stems zigzagging everywhere. Surprisingly enough, he’s oddly comfortable lying in a black hole with a body that’s trying to dig itself. It’s calm and quiet and soothing.  
There’s a soft, sweet smell coming in whiffs from somewhere nearby. That’s what he focuses on, trying to suck in enough air to figure out exactly what the fragrance is. Just when he thinks that he’ll put a finger on it, something appears into his vision and he startles. And it hurts.  


Crunching up in a ball, he stops breathing in hopes that it’ll ease the crushing of his lungs. Either that or it’ll put him out of his misery. His attempt of self rescue comes to a halt when he feels a gentle touch on his forehead. He’d forgotten about the thing that startled him.  
He isn’t ready to open his eyes, or willing to start breathing again. It’s not like he has someone waiting for him to wake up. So even though the touch on his forehead becomes more insistent and he knows that he should see who or what is with him in here, he chooses to go with his body’s pleas to stop functioning.  
  
Jensen is not restless. He’s a god, patience is among his qualities. But he can get scared, because nobody is above the fear of losing something precious. The being lying curled up and still might not seem precious, but it is. And the longer it stays still, the more fearful Jensen gets. If only people could see the feared god being scared over the life of a mere mortal.  
  
The first time the human moves, Jensen is not there. He only knows about it because he knows every moment of everything happening in the kaaksha from anywhere. It’s always in the corner of his vision. He can feel the man’s suffering in his own soul, a phantom agony shivering down his spine. The intensity of it slows him down, the closer he gets, the more agonizing it becomes, until he has to stop. He doesn’t go any closer until the man goes unconscious again, and by that time, he’s curled himself up into a fetal ball.  
Even when the man is unconscious, Jensen hurts. Only, this pain isn’t phantom. The face tilted into the ground makes him ache, spread of hair and fingers curled under making him crunch with guilt. Are gods supposed to feel guilty? He doesn’t know, and he has nobody that he can ask. The tree never talks, and this isn’t a question that he wants to ask the tree either. So instead, he suffers in silent hisses and tries desperately to heal faster.  
  
It’s not easy. When he sucks out the first portion of toxin, it hits him hard. His own venom, made by his own body paralyzes him momentarily. The second time around, he wishes he was just paralyzed because it burns so much. His eyes actually sting because if he’s hurting so much, he can only imagine what the man is going through.  
In his few hundred years of existence, he’s healed a lot of humans; from diseases to broken skulls to snake bites. He’s never had to cure someone of venom from his own kind, because he’s the last one of his kind and he’s never bitten anyone mistakenly before. There’s a reason nagas are so careful about only punishing those who deserve to be punished. There’s a price to pay if you want to save someone bitten by a serpent. That price might not be as high if you’re sucking your own poison out, but still, every time the human loses a bit of the poison, Jensen loses a little bit of himself.  


In the temple, something keeps buzzing every once in awhile in the sack the man was carrying. It scares the ants and frogs that have started to roam over his belongings. But little by little, the insects have started to ignore the strange buzzing cloth, some even becoming daring enough to explore the insides of the sack in search of the food that’s going bad. Below the stone floor of the temple and layers of earth, Jensen keeps circling his unfortunate victim. He knows that he should visit the lake, that the swans are feeding their nestlings and chirping for him. But he can’t make himself go to watch new life when there’s one at danger because of him. Slowly, the man’s posture gets a bit less laborious. He’s not constantly soaked in sweat and shivering any longer.  
Then he opens his eyes again. Jensen sees him staring ahead. He remembers that humans can’t see well in the dark, and sunlight doesn’t reach down here too much. His intention for moving closer is so that the man can see him better, but as soon as his eyes fall on Jensen, he startles and a pained sound leaves his mouth. Jensen has a second of panic when he scrunches his eyes shut and curls into a ball…and then stops breathing.  
  
Jensen touches his damp nose to the man’s forehead and when that doesn’t get the man to move, he rubs his scaly face along the itchy bearded human cheek. Time in the kaaksha flows much slower than that of the human world, but right then, with the snake’s face pressed to the man’s pinched cheek, time almost stands still. Jensen’s own panicked lungs refuses to expand until he feels a puff of warm breath against his eyelid. ‘The man is breathing, a voice from inside him says, but he doesn’t move; stays there for a long time, until the human and time both start breathing normally again.  
He knows that if the human wakes up right now, he’ll be so scared. Just seeing Jensen’s silhouette did this, if he finds himself face to face with a 25 foot long cobra, he might just die of shock. He’ll move….just one second.  
Maybe he should shift.  


The sandwiches Jared had brought with him, or what’s left of them after ants, cockroaches and other insects have feasted on them, are now covered in greening fungus, bad smell making the whole backpack stink. His phone has finally stopped buzzing since the battery died. These are observations made by the cracked pillars of the temple and the wind carrying the yeasty smell around. The owner of the contents is still in a fever-induced dream of things that are fascinating.  
He dreams about trees. Lots of them, huge dark brown and green ones and small ones full of colors and flowers. It’s weird that he sees so many details; usually his dreams are a blur of black and white that he forgets before he wakes up. But here, there’s one thing in particular that keeps reappearing. It’s a giant fluffy tree with leaves that range from green to blue to black, light brown vines coming down like ropes. It’s tilting into a lake, the branches almost touching the clear green water. There’s something more there, something important that demandsJared’s attention. But every timeJared tries to look closer, he ends up somewhere else and the cycle repeats.  
  
He’s getting frustrated, wishes that he had his recorder in his palm. Where the hell is that thing anyway? It is its job to record things that he might forget, dammit. There’s something vital under that mammoth of a tree but it keeps slipping from him. It’s like trying to grasp at water, the tighter he fists his fingers, the faster it escapes. He’s concentrating on seeing beyond the sky’s reflection in the lake so much that he frowns and his pupils start moving rapidly under closed lids. And before he can stop himself, his eyes are opening, hand scrambling on rough hard ground trying to hold on to that beautiful place.  
He comes to the here and now when his nails scrape over loose dirt and make a sound that make his teeth tingle. Blink. 

Blink again.  
Where the hell is he? His body instinctively wants to grab for something solid to grab onto before he finally remembers the sting in his shoulder, and then, terrifyingly, the stone snake coming at him with yellow-green eyes and fangs out.  
  
The memory makes him tense up – well, attempt to tense up. Only then does he feel the numbness in his entire body. He can only move his head, that too, very scarcely. The mere moments it takes for him to look down his body makes his vision blur and a sour taste flood his mouth. He’s lying sideways on the ground, body covered with a grey fabric that he can’t feel the texture of. Softly putting his head back down on the ground,Jared takes some deep breaths to control the nausea and panic.  
  
He doesn’t know how he got here, or better yet, how he’s alive after being bitten by a cobra. A statue of a cobra. Ok, so maybe he isn’t alive after all, maybe he died after the bite and his dead(?) brain made up a snake and a garden. Is this the after-life?  
  
Something ripples in his periphery and cuts off his musings, which he’s grateful for. Until he actually sees what’s happening. A giant snake has appeared out of nowhere…..and it’s heading straight towardsJared. The situation is so ridiculous thatJared forgets to get scared. Instead, he stares dumbly at the creature that has stopped barely two feet away from him. It’s gorgeous. Huge body long and thick; inner body a striking clean white and outer body is….beautiful. There are no other words for it. The outer body is covered in scales so sleek that they’re shimmering even in the low light, a dark shade of blue getting lighter towards the middle and turning bright green. There are patterns of lighter green and yellow throughout the entire body, coming up to the massive head that’s-  
“Woah!” he exclaims. The snake has moved closer, leaning just a few inches away from Jared and staring right at him. Though his heartbeat kicks up dangerously in panic and fear,Jared’s paralyzed body can’t do much more than go still and stare wide-eyed at the monster.  
  
‘It’s too big to be a cobra’ he thinks, because really, what else is he supposed to do? It’s not like he can move anything more than a finger and a toe, and even if he could, there’s no way he could’ve gotten out of this alive. So he just stares at the snake and waits for it to sink its teeth intoJared’s throat for a final time.  
Jensen’s seen the man’s eyes before; that first day he came here and later. But never from this close, not without them being clouded with pain and fever. They’re still glassy and feverish, pupils dark from pain. But they’re much clearer right now than before. As he looks down at the man’s shocked eyes, all he can think about is how deep they are. He remembers the colors he’d once seen from the peak of Sri Pada, and can’t help but think about how the green land merging with cloudy grayish blue sky resembles the colors of this man’s eyes.  
  
When he leans closer, the eyes go even wider before they close, the tick of a gulp, and then he bares his neck like Jensen’s going to bite him. Jensen breathes through a rush of guilt before climbing over the man’s neck and going to the injury. The skin there is purple and swollen, the centre of it white …. within it, teeth marks. Initially there were only two, but now after three more bites, the place looks like mud that’s been stepped over by tiny round feet. Adding two more to the pile, Jensen sinks his fans into the abused skin. When his teeth puncture the dermis, the man beneath him trembles, hand grabbing weekly at Jensen just below his neck.  
  
The soft touch stays there while Jensen sucks impure blood from the man’s capillaries. Wave after wave of agony makes his cells burn and his body slumps, entire weight resting on the human. Through it all, the long fingers wrapped halfway round his tube body stays. Jensen clutches at it; grabs that point of contact with his soul and lets it keep him in this realm, uses it to anchor himself against the force pulling him away from this space into another.  
Finishing the process for the time being, he moves back slowly. His vision swims dangerously, making him rest his head against the chin under him. The man is unconscious, his touch on Jensen slack. He tells himself to move, that he needs to go see mother, but can’t. Even moving his tail is too much effort right now…. And the body against him is alive and hard and feels good; touch of cold, clammy skin soothing his overheated venomous scales. Without much thought, Jensen gives into the temptation and shifts closer to the human, curls his tail around the man’s legs, touches his forehead to the damp, broad chest, and falls asleep.  
Jared wakes up in a weird position. Actually, weird is a massive understatement. He wakes up to find his arms full of snake.  
He has the instinctual response of jerking back violently, and thankfully, this time his body isn’t an unresponsive sack. He does jerk back. Though it doesn’t take him anywhere other than to sitting up dizzily, it does dislocate the cobra from his body. He scrambles to make his limbs work with him and curses when they don’t. They feel like jelly and refuse to hold up their own weight, and somewhere, something hurts.  
Before he can put his finger on exactly what hurts the most, a hiss from his left side takes his attention away. The snake is now lying on the ground, body limp and eyes blinking slowly.  
Wait a second… blinking?  
Chest heaving,Jared supports his weight on both palms. His body is twisted awkwardly towards the reptile, and he looks at it. Yes, the animal definitely has eyelids that right now look like they weigh a ton. 

Actually, it looks like it’s taking huge efforts to breath, too. Jared runs a hand though his dirty hair and sighs. Whatever this thing before him is, it’s obviously not an ordinary snake, and it looks either sick or hurt.  
Slowly,Jared moves closer to the snake. It’s lying coiled up on the cold hard ground, chest and stomach rising and falling rapidly. The rug that was overJared’s body is now covering the lower half of his body, having fallen down when he sat up. Picking the heavy fabric up, he moves just enough to drape it on the reptile, all the while telling himself how monumentally stupid he is. If only his parents saw him right now; stubble grown into beard, lying half-naked in a black hole with a snake. This is so what they accuse him of being – overly imaginative.  
The thing is, Jared isn’t. Not really. Which makes the fragments of memories in his mind and the current situation all the more complicated. He remembers the bite, thinks he remembers a statue coming to life. There’s a lot of pain involved, and there are a couple of blurry images where he remembers this thing sinking its teeth into him more than once. Oh, that reminds him about his shoulder and fucking hell it hurts.  
His arm and chest throb in unison with his shoulder and he drops back down on the floor, head automatically tilting sideways to watch his attacker. He doesn’t know how, but he’s certain that this mammoth is the one that attacked him, and then for some reason, kept him alive.  
Which just circles back to just how utterly ridiculous and unbelievable this whole scenario is. Too many questions run through his mind, including ‘is this real’ and ‘why is it not killing me.’  
They drain what little energy he has, and soon his eyes start drooping. Despite having throat and mouth drier than paper, looking for water doesn’t even occur to him as he falls back into slumber.  
It’s Jared’s thirst that wakes Jensen up. He feels like he’s been stranded in a desert, tongue stuck to his palette due to lack of moisture. But as soon as he blinks his eyes open, he realizes that he’s not the dehydrated one. The human is lying close by, the rug Jensen put over him now draped over Jensen too. His need for water flowing over Jensen in waves.  
Jensen is still a little wobbly as he gets water from the lake. Things are getting thin; if the healing isn’t finished soon, Jensen might not have enough time to do the rest. He doesn’t get it, the man is young and healthy, by all means built like Apollo. Why’s it taking his body so long to make up for the lost blood once Jensen sucks the dead ones out? The nestlings are now young birds, floating lazily on the still water and gazing his way when he takes the water. ‘Soon’ he promises. He’ll be back here soon, maybe for forever. But first he needs to fix what he broke.  
Getting the man to drink the fluid is tricky and tolling on Jensen’s weakening body. At this moment, the thought of why bothers Jensen. Why is he neglecting his duty to mother, to the temple, for this? What’s making him willing to give up his centuries of earthly presence for a human that’ll probably die in a few decades?  
The answer probably lies in the god in Jensen, the one people came to when they were faced with unjust wounds and diseases beyond their capacity. Here, the unjust wound is Jensen’s own doing, so that’s probably why the instinct to cure and heal is much stronger. That’s what Jensen hangs onto, and carefully twists his mind away from his soul, his human soul that’s screaming at him to protect the man. This part has nothing to do with mystic powers and everything to do with him yearning to get closer to the human, to touch that cheek again, rest his head against the cocoon of a warm chest and just close his eyes, rest for a while…..or forever.  
That’s a scary thought to have. He’s roamed this ground alone for so long, watching over the temple and keeping his kind in this world single-handedly. Of course, sometimes it gets lonely, the birds and swans and the jungle, ancient stones of the temple and his unmoving mother not enough accomplices to keep him company. But those are just fleeting thoughts, flashing into his mind when he’s sitting at the edge of the lake, or going to sleep in the kaaksha. They make him want to dive into the cold water or to walk around the garden. They’ve seldom made him want to just wither away into the further.  
But as he gazes upon the helpless, fragile form on the ground, purposes get confused; desire to watch over him feeling almost as vital as being the last nagraj on earth. Jensen shakes his head, trying to chase the dangerous train of thought away. He’s going to keep the man fed and hydrated, he’ll go away once he’s healthy enough, and Jensen will go back to being a forgotten myth.  


  
_Life seldom goes according to plan; whether you’re a scientist scarred by childhood, or a mighty divine beast. Sometimes, your paths are totally parallel, until they collide in an accident so epic that it changes course for the remaining road, crumble zones mashed together so that they become one._

__

__

__

___The moment whenJared had bent down to wash his face under an old tree and Jensen was watching the tree waiting for the source of an alien scent to come to view, halfway across the world, a pyramid was being overtaken by a twisting shadowy figure; a giant magical creature descending from the sky to spiral down the Teotihuacan in broad daylight but out of people’s view. She was only there for a few heartbeats, but in that time, she granted one prayer. The purest one made just then by Ophion.  
Neither Jensen norJared knew about this. They didn’t even know that they needed this. But the collision had already happened, and what lay ahead was a path as dazzling as the multitude of colors in Jensen’s scales. The feathered serpent was satisfied with her blessing when she left earth to ascend to who knows where. __  
_

There might be some truth to the accusation that Jared’s imagination runs wild. Or used to, before it was strangled by ‘grow up’ and ‘you’re too old for this’. Once when he was fourteen years old, he’d written a story about the funny monster in his curtain. It was for his English assignment, and he’d gotten A for it. That day, he was confronted by a group of teenagers outside the school gate, and taught personally how big boys should be writing about football and racing, not curtains and ghosts. Later, when his mom had found out how he got a black eye, she told him to learn from Josh how to act like a man and stop embarrassing himself.  


  
He did. He never told anybody about the stories in his head again. He became a man that didn’t imagine scenarios and didn’t tell anyone how he cried when Sadie passed. Men didn’t cry for dogs, right? He played every available sport, spent hours in the gym. He even grew out his hair to the point where it was an automatic fuck you to his father’s restrictions. Oh, and he persued a subject that was, in his brother’s word, not a subject at all.  
  
That doesn’t mean that he didn’t imagine scenarios and what ifs and once upons. Lying god knows where, wondering how his stomach feels full even though he hasn’t eaten in what feels like a lifetime, Jared wonders if this is a fragment of his mind too. Has he, like his parents say, gone too far into la la land that he’s stuck there for good?  
That brings an irritated groan out of Jared. Running his fingers through his tangled, oily hair, he calculates just what a mess he is; hair in knots, face bearded, stinking of sweat and dirt and missing his henley. He remembers waking up half naked the last time, too, which means what exactly? 

__

Questions won’t answer themselves, soJared places careful palms on the ground and pushes himself up. The rug he’d put on the snake is lying there next to him minus the snake, the cave is still as infinite as it was before; everywhere he looks he just sees continuous near blackness. He tries to get his legs under him, but that doesn’t work very well. They don’t function and he falls on his ass with a pained grunt.  
Through the corner of his eye, he catches movement while trying to get his teeth unclenched. How he hurts that much and is still alive is a mystery that he wants to solve.  
It’s no surprise this time when the not-snake comes to stand a few feet away from Jared. By standing, he means that its huge body is coiled loosely and the head is towering overJared. He tilts his head upwards to watch what it does.  
Well, he doesn’t properly understand what it does. One moment it’s leaning over him, yellow pupil staring at Jared like it can see his soul. The next moment it has sunken its teeth intoJared’s throbbing shoulder. He just sucks in a shuddery breath and lets it.  
He is surprised when sometime later, it’s the snake that collapses instead of the one that got bit. It goes limp on Jared’s shoulder, head lolling againstJareds back.  
That’s when the lightbulb inJared’s head starts flickering to life. Holding a beast against his body,Jared starts putting the pieces together; from the myth told by people toJareds own experience. This thing, the unconscious beingJared is holding against his chest, is Jaffn’an, the son of the nagin. Oh god.  
“He smells nice,” Jensen thinks as he lies limp against the human. He can feel the contaminated blood mixing with his own and turning his body onto leaden weight. There’s nothing he can do other than let himself fall. The man catches him, holds him close to his warm skin, and Jensen closes his eyes. The man is still not cured, and Jensen doesn’t have very long.  
It’s nice to be held against something alive, Jensen realizes. He doesn’t even remember the last time someone held him together with their hands. Hands…..having hands right now would be nice. He could touch the shoulder and feel blood, alive and warm, rush through arteries. He could touch the point of that nose and the eyelids that always flutter when they’re closed. The thought of shifting is becoming more and more appealing. 

When Jensen moves his head a little and breathes through his nose, it’s dark in the kaaksha. It’s supposed to always be dark here, but since the man can’t see in the dark, he allowed the sunlight to filter through, even though it makes his eyes hurt. Right now though, it’s pitch black, things outlined with different shades of green, blue and yellow in Jensen’s eyes. The man, sitting a little to his left, is red. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ground with his back against a fat root and his hand on Jensen’s head, rubbing slow circles between his eyes. It’s so comforting that he wants to shift closer and rest his head on the knee and let him run his soft hands all over his hurting body. But he doesn’t want to startle him, so Jensen stays as he is and looks.  
“You awake?” the man whispers and turns tired eyes to Jensen though the darkness. His cheeks and lips are hidden under too long stubble, skin pale and dark bruises under his eyes; the jut of his collarbone is a bright shade of yellow, chest and stomach detailed by different shades, just like a curved statue of Apollo. He’s so beautiful, he’d fit nicely in the garden with all the other beautiful things and clear water.  
“Why are you doing this buddy? What do you want?”  
Jensen doesn’t know. He did, he was just doing what he’s supposed to do, but now he doesn’t. He concentrates on the deep, rough voice instead, feels himself start drooping and doesn’t fight it. The man’s not really talking to him, just talking, and Jensen lets it pull him into a state of floating.  


Jared still can’t do more than sit up for short periods of time, doesn’t manage to stay awake too long either. But he’s made progress from where he was; hell, it’s a literal miracle that he’s still alive. But there’s only so long that magic can hold its power, reality has to peek in sometime. It does, in the form of a fever that knocks his ass right down to the dusty ground. One moment he was sitting in the dark talking to a sleeping snake, the next moment, a shiver breaks out from his neck that spreads through his entire body; making his teeth rattle and his eyes water. The snake wakes up, whether from the sudden violent movement or from the pained groanJared lets out, he’s not sure. He clutches his head with both hands to shield his brain from the phantom siren splitting his ears.  
  
A damp nose nudges his forearm, gentle touch trying to tug him down. He lets himself fall sideways on the ground and keeps shivering helplessly. The green monster is moving frantically around him, probably trying to figure out what went wrong. Jared feels a pang of guilt at scaring it like this, and feels even guiltier for jerking it out of its peaceful sleep. He knows how ridiculous he’s being, but his fever-induced stupor screams at him to reassure the thing that he’s ok. After all, men are supposed to be strong and console disturbed souls. Even through his clattering teeth, he lets out a snort as he rests a heavy hand on the snake’s head. 

Things get even slower after that. The fever, which is probably due to an infection in the wound area, refuses to let up. It could also be because of more serious things, like blood poisoning, but who cares. It’s not that Jared thinks his parents aren’t worried about him. Of course they are, they’re probably going out of their minds trying to reach him. But the thing is, he’s not sure whether he wants to be found like this. He doesn’t wanna spend the rest of his life hearing about how his job got him killed or how he should’ve known better, been more careful. Death is an inevitable thing waiting for everyone, what’s the harm in dying at 28 inside the root of an ancient tree while a snake looks over him?  
  
Actually, that’s not true. Someone certainly cares, Jared thinks they do. It’s the freaking snake. The thing has gone desperate since his temperature went past 103, and more so when his fingertips started turning blue. It licks the blue tips with its dual tongue, which is so creepy. But it’s also very humbling, lying in a heap in a cave and watching a beast try to lick you better. Jared’s lips stretch in a tiny smile. Having silent companions that won’t be a constant alarm of your failures is kind of nice. And the creature being so magnificent is a bonus.  
  
At the second sunrise, when Jared wakes up for the umpteenth time with a snake over his chest and its fangs in his skin, he finally admits to himself that the snake is for real trying to save him. It’s like those ridiculous ‘80s movies where someone sucks the venom out through the bite. Everything about this is like a cringy horror movie. Jared’s mind brings up a lot of stories inspired by this scenario. And since the ache in his neck and head doesn’t let him sleep properly, he starts saying those stories out loud. He’s dying, and there’s nobody to see him being weak here, nobody he can embarrass himself before. So why not indulge in his brain’s last-ditch efforts to make him happy? So he starts voicing his imaginations, and he’s very pleased with himself when the snake starts paying attention to him.  
  
He’s not making this up; the snake does sit with him for hours without movement and stares at him while he tells stories about Cleopatra’s wisdom, about two brothers that hunt monsters. It doesn’t judge him for being “unmanly”, and Jared’s enthusiasm returns little by little.  
They form a routine of a kind; the snake wakes him up with its fangs in him, he gets a little weaker every day, and then he tells it all kinds of things. Sometimes, it goes a bit away from him and disappears in a ripple in space, and reappears a bit later. It somehow keeps him fed and hydrated while he keeps throwing up, and the cycle repeats.  
  
Thing is, Jared missed this. To be more accurate, he never had this; someone caring for him and giving him attention without expecting anything from him. The more he pays attention to the snake, the more he appreciates him. He’s breathtaking in his beauty, heartbreaking in his history. Jared might not know the true detailed version of it, but he got a vague idea from the villagers about what went down here centuries ago. He cannot believe that Jaff’an hasn’t set him on fire, but instead is using his healing powers for him. It takes a lot of resilience to set a vengeance aside to tend to an enemy.  
Jared is in awe.  
The first time the human thinks about Jensen as a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’ is a special moment. That one thought opens up a part ofJared’s brain to Jensen and he’s flooded with memories and emotions that only humans can feel. It’s a rush of emotions so intense that Jensen shakes with it, but there’s one particular bit of information that stands out from all others. Jensen suddenly knows whyJared’s body isn’t trying to heal, and his heart breaks a little.  
  
A body is a home for the soul. Just like a home can provide safety and comfort to the people in it but can’t nourish and heal them, body and soul work the same way. And when the soul doesn’t want to be helped, keeping the body alive is strenuous. Jensen is a healer of the body. No matter how much power he uses, he can’t help Jared if he refuses to accept it.  
It’s a depressing realization and it leaves him feeling hopeless and lost. He desperately wants Jared to be ok. If only he could talk….  
  
He enters the kaaksha sometimes around noon, when the sunlight is intense enough to flood the cave with light and warmth. Jared is lying under a messy root with his hand tucked under his cheek, purple tips of them a stark contrast to his otherwise too pale skin. He doesn’t have long.  
It’s not like Jensen hasn’t shifted before. When he was a spawn, mother used to coax him into it. But that was all; he’s never done it willingly and never has had the need to. Right now though, he does. 

It hurts, just as much as skinning someone alive would, and a little more. The shedding starts from his head; layers of skin being peeled off from muscles, blood vessels tearing off into splashes of liquid. When his nerve endings come off, he cannot hold on any longer and lets out agonizing screams that echo into one another. By the time his last layer sheds, he’s screamed his throat raw, lying in a puddle of liquid and whimpering pathetically. 

When Jared hears a loud screeching sound, he tries to ignore it in favor of keeping his head blank. But the screeching doesn’t go away, instead turns into ear splitting screams,Jared startles awake; and sits frozen at the sight before him. In theory, he knows what’s going on here, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less hard to witness. No myth ever told him that shifting hurts the creature, or that gods had to actually shed skin to shift forms.  


He watches helplessly as the figure before him dissolves into a pile of waste material and slime, a small form covered in said slimy substance curled into fetal position among the other things. Jared forces himself to move, drags himself across the distance and right to the gross spot. His nose scrunches up at the various colors and textures scattered like scrambled eggs, but then the actual smell hits his nose. It’s…. sweet?  


He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that this is the nice smell he was trying to find the source of. Thankfully, he’s quickly distracted from that when the pile on the floor suddenly moves. The vague figure of a human among the goo makes him move in fear that he might drown.  
  
Jared crunches down next to the shivering form and slowly runs his finger into the semi liquid. Yuck.  
He keeps removing it until somewhat of a face comes into view, and by that time his hand is too slippery to remove any more. But at least the man won’t suffocate in his own fluids now. There’s still pathetic whimpers falling from the man;Jared needs to clean him up.  
In the undetermined amount of time that he’s been here, he’s never known exactly where his food and water came from, just that the snake would disappear among the various twists of roots and come back with something. So now that he needs to be the one to search for the source, he’s at a loss.  
The man/god must sense his dilemma because he starts making efforts to move. He’s clearly very weak, and Jared holds on to his slippery form as he sits up. There’s not much Jared can see through all the things covering him, so he just tries to keep a hold on him while the man makes slow but determined efforts to move, as much to hold himself up as the person he’s supporting.  


It’s a testament to just how far gone Jared is that when he steps through time and space, he just merely blinks and looks around in curiosity, tightening his hold on the form leaning on him in case he might get disoriented. Given everything that’s been happening, he’d actually have been disappointed if the food source had turned out to be a warehouse at the temple. This place, he decides, is a fitting place for a beautiful snake god.  
It isn’t until the lake comes into the periphery of his vision that he begins to freak out. There are noises, quacks of white pink birds all around the lake, many of them gathered under a tree thatJared’s sure he’s seen before. He doesn’t remember where he’s seen it, but he knows for a fact that he has.  
  
The closer they get to the water, the more his brain short circuits, and when they finally reach the edge of the lake, he’s so dizzy that he lets go of the man and sits down heavily. He’s suddenly exhausted.  
Jensen dives into the water with a grateful sigh. The cold, soothing liquid has never felt so good before. It soothes his torn nerve endings and washes the suffocating serum away till he’s not whimpering in pain any more. He’s missed this, letting the water take his weight and just float in space; it’s been forever since he’s used his arms and legs.  
  
He breaks the surface with a huge gulp of air and his eyes go straight to the figure under the tree. Jared is sitting with his back against the bark, cross legged and hands folded over his knees. His face is tilted up towards the dark blue sky, orange light making his beard glow. Jensen’s breath hitches in his chest.  
He looks so tired sitting there, looking small and frail. He looks resigned. The water around Jensen loses its appeal as the pull towards the distressed human intensifies, and Jensen gives into it, lets it take him there. 

The sky here is fascinating. A dark blue rippled with bright grey clouds, auroras rippling here and there, tinting parts of it pink and violet. It remindsJared of a time when he was around eight. He’d gone on a cruise ship with his parents. In the middle of the ocean where the sky was free of city lights, planes passing through would have a pinkish hue to them, as if the sky was blushing. When he’d asked Josh about it, he told Jared that he only saw blushing girls, not airplanes. That reminds him... there’s a world out there, a real world where he belongs. He should probably find a way to get himself there before his body starts rotting.  
A silhouette blocksJared’s view of the sky and he frowns. Why do people always, always interrupt his thoughts? He opens his mouth to tell the person to get lost, and promptly closes it again. Goddamnit.  


You see, gods are normally portrayed as handsome, strong hunks. Goddesses are viewed as sensual and powerful, graceful. Jared has no adjectives that he can describe him with. Beautiful is probably a massive understatement. He’s staring mesmerized at the bright green eyes that put the leaves behind him to shame when the face splits into a smile. Yeah, he’s definitely dead, there’s no way something can be so pretty.  
Jared is still staring shamelessly at his face when he takesJared’s hand and pulls him towards the water, and well, he is in no state to refuse; he follows the man hazily and dips down into ice cold aqua.  


  
The world disappears in a blur, ears filled with static and chest constricting. He can’t breathe, can’t scream. And he panics, flailing around to try to find the way back up. He can’t find it, light coming from every direction and from none. Just when his lungs start burning alarmingly and his vision goes red around the edges, that face appears again, blurry and too close. It looks so funny, shape distorted by water waves and hair floating around in every direction thatJared wants to laugh. Would have, if the face didn’t close the distance with his face first.  
Nothing happens,Jared’s lips numb from the cold and the venom and his eyes stinging from being too wide open under water. His lungs are begging for air. Desperately, he opens his lips against the mouth pressed against it, and…. 

It’s like a volcanic eruption, too much pressed into too little for too long until it bursts at the seams and everything explodes. Jared’s lungs inflate as air rushes into it and his nerve endings catch fire. Years and years and years of memories; pain, hope, loneliness, yearning fillJared’s body along with the life-giving air, and he flushes hot amongst the cold water all around it. When Jensen lets him go, his cheeks are pink and he’s breathless for a whole new reason.  
  
They break the surface together, Jensen moving sleek and smooth whileJared makes clumsy splashes. He’s positively overwhelmed, not used to this much feeling and not knowing how to process it all. All his life he’s taught himself to feel as little as possible; deliberately shutting some feelings out while others just left him. Anger and pain he knows, the rest, especially hope, is alien. Jensen has pulled himself up onto the edge, sitting on all fours and leaning down, probably to watch something under water.  
  
Jared stays there in chest deep water and watches him. Head tilted to one side and brow furrowed, he looks like he’s very interested in something he’s seeing. And hey, curiosity is what got Jared here in the first place. So he gets himself beside Jensen and looks down, too.  
  
Jared lets out a surprised laugh at what he sees. Jensen is staring at his own reflection with wide, astonished eyes, fingers of his right hand touching the surface, making small waves that flow through the reflection and make him blink. Jared can relate.  
“Yes Jensen, you are quite unreal” he says with a smile tugging at his lips. “Now, wanna tell me how I know your name, or better yet, why you prefer Jensen?”  
When Jensen doesn’t respond, he pokes his shoulder. That gets two startled green eyes turn to him, and Jared lets out another laugh. He doesn’t know why he’s laughing so much, why he’s so giddy all of a sudden, but he is. The person in front of him might be the reason. “You found that cooler than Jaffn’an? That’s it, right?”  
  
Only, Jensen isn’t looking at his eyes, instead focused on his lips, and he’s reminded of the fact that Jensen is all naked, wet skin in front of him. It isn’t until Jensen’s face gets shadowed with concern that Jared is reminded of his own appearance.  
It’s jarring, the sudden reminder that his body is decomposing by the minute. He looks down at his fingers, the tips of them a sick blue and white made more disgusting by how pruned they are. He knows his lips look the same, if not worse. He hasn’t seen his face in…. he has no idea how long. “You never fail to make us look bad, Jared” his mom’s voice, loud and cruel in his mind, reminds him.  
A touch to his dry cracked lips brings him out of that particular thought. The thumb brushing over his lower lip makes him let out a nervous breath. The human snake leans in real close before pushing at his shoulder and making him twist sideways. It hurts differently this time because the teeth are not lean and pointed but wide and sharp instead. They squeeze at all the raw and painful wounds before puncturing skin, blood tickling his skin as it oozes out anew. 

He grabs the grass beneath his hands tight and shoves his face against the inside of his elbow, breathes deep. It hurts; the skin and the muscle below, his shoulder and arm. But then it goes somewhere deeper, like his bones are being sucked out through his skin. There’s tingling in his toes like little needles piercing flesh and there’s a pinch in his diaphragm and he lets out a whimper, biting down to stop the screams that want to fall.  
  
Ages later, when Jared is a shivering, sweating mess, the monster pulls his teeth out of his body, plush fat lips smeared with fresh blood. The blood now doesn’t all taste tainted and clotted. This time, there is a taste like that very first time, the unfortunate instance when Jensen had sunk his teeth in for vengeance. It’s a little victory, the copper tang a sign that the body beneath him is fighting decay. It’s a sign that Jensen might have some time.  
He doesn’t feel so victorious when he feels the tremors running through Jared’s whole body. He’s crumbled under Jensen, legs pressed knee to chest and face smashed against the soil. Jensen touches the droplets gathered at the base of his neck where long damp hair is curled againstJared’s shoulder. The dark brown locks against the cream, sun- deprived skin is intriguing. Jensen drapes his body over Jared, hands reaching around and curling against hard stomach to fight off the violent jerks. He presses his nose into the hollow whereJared’s neck meets his shoulder and breathes in the musk.  
  
If he could, he’d take all ofJared’s pain away, rid him of the detox. But he can’t, not when his own body feels like it’s lying on burning coal. So he holds on a little tighter and begs Ophion to ease the man’s pain. ‘Let me take it all. Let him walk his world again.’  


_It’s not time yet for the feathered serpent to descend to the pyramid again. The sun has a day to go before night and day become equal, so when Ophion hears a desperate plea, he has a long time to bask in the glory of his prayer being answered. _  
__

____

____

  
He’s in a world of sorry when he wakes up later, and keeps still. Moving would mean moving his neck and back, and he’s so not looking forward to that. But grass is tickling his nose and his hand is asleep and, well, there’s a heavy warm weight on his back. Tentatively, he tries uncurling his fingers from the death grip of grass and dirt and “OW!”  
  
So much for neck and back when his finger joints pop like this. The weight on his back falls to the side with a thump as he shakes himself up in one go, like ripping off a band aid. It works just as good as every fast and fierce plan goes, which means it goes like shit.  
“Fucking hell!”  
Letting out curses and hopping around from foot to foot helps. A little. The snicker coming from the ground helps a lot more, since it drags his eyes to its source. And uh, huh.  
  
Turns out, cream skin on green grass makes for an immensely beautiful picture, especially when that cream form is Jensen. He’s looking at Jared with bright green eyes and a warm smile andJared’s muscle pain doesn’t feel so bad. He could get used to waking up to this.


	3. I Don't Feel Like I'm Really There

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

They find Jared behind the temple, where a broken pedestal ends in some stairs that lead to roots and rubble. He’s covered in leaves, almost deemed unrecognizable with mud and other slimy substances. When they bring him out into sunlight and clear some dirt off of his face, the true extent of his injuries are visible. He’s still unconscious when he’s boarded into a helicopter and sent to Jakarta for immediate medical attention.  
The locals are not happy; even before the bird is air bound, they’re cursing the foreigner for daring to infuriate the nagraj, immediately arranging a sacrificial ceremony to try and calm the beast’s rage.  
On the way to the hospital,Jared’s vitals drop multiple times only to climb so high that the paramedics worry about a cardiac event. But that doesn’t happen, becauseJared’s heart isn’t irregular because of venom, it’s leaping out of his chest because Jensen is drowning and he can’t seem to grab him. The deeper he goes to try to grab Jensen, the further Jensen goes, slipping right through his fingers.  
The cardiac event happens in the emergency ward of Asri hospital; attendees of other patients looking around curiously as a sharp beep floods the crowded room. Jensen has closed his eyes, his face getting lost in the blue water of the lake and suddenlyJared can’t remember the color of his irises. He tries to swim deeper down, but his feet get stuck to dry land and his hands are suddenly bound. Jared cannot move and Jensen is floating into infinity. 

When he wakes up on his third day at the hospital, his hands are bound with leather cuffs to the side rails. Sherry Padalecki is looking down at him with teary eyes while a guy in a white coat flashes a torch at his eyes. He jerks his head back. “What?”  
“Hello Mr. Padalecki. Quite a scare you gave us.” Jared blinks several times to adjust to the rude, bright light of the room.  
They poke him about hundred different times and when satisfied with his stable vitals, tell him about how he’d gone missing and had been found in a pile of rubble. Jared objects immediately, then promptly shuts up when he can’t come up with a counter argument. He doesn’t remember. He has no idea how or where he was. But still he cannot help but object because he was not lying in a pile of rubble all this time, and it wasn’t a viper that bit him. He ends up being scheduled for an MRI.  
They don’t find anything wrong; there is nothing wrong. The neurologist explains to him how his confusion is because his brain is trying to protect him from traumatic experience.  
WhenJared says that he doesn’t feel traumatized, he patiently repeats the same thing again and signs him up for counseling.  
“To help you get your memories and emotions right.”  
Right,Jared does need that right now. Because particular shades of bottle green and blue make his head do crazy things, which worsens his physical condition; ultimately leading to a longer hospital stay.  
His “counseling” is upgraded to “therapy” after he wakes the night shift nurse up several times, his desperate pleadings echoing through the corridor. He wakes up with little to no memory of the nightmares, just an aching hollow in his chest like he’s lost something vital among the tide of time and space. His stay in Jakarta extends until his body is free from lethal venom and his wounds are dry brown instead of raw purple.  
The more he gets physically better though, the more his mind’s “protective techniques” become very unhelpful, harmful even. Being high on morphine was a good way of keeping cavities numb, cavities in his memories and in his chest. His mom gets more than one psychologists’ appointment for him even before he’s in the states.  
It’s only when he begins unpacking his luggage that the travel bag gets his attention. It’s the one that the rescuers found in the temple, minus the rotten food and cleaned by hotel staff. Going through its contents,Jared finds some missing pieces; his map, pen, recorder and camera.  
The next morning, he calls a psychiatrist.  
“So it speaks English?”  
This psychiatrist, Dr. Steven, is the opposite of his therapist. She’s indulgent and graceful, pathetically understanding. This one is anything but; he’s incredulous and scrutinizing. Jared’s not even sure how he got his license as a psychiatrist with this crude personality. Jared likes him.  
“Yes, he does.” Not really. I mean, Jensen has never spoken out loud, but his thoughts are in English. Or soJared thinks.  
“You speak English.”  
Is that supposed to be a question? Jared opens his mouth to answer, but Dr. Steven cuts him off. “You know, Sigmund Freud was a very wise man when he said that there’s an ‘it’ in all of us.”  
Oh, this. Jared studied this; the super-ego, ego and the id. He agrees viciously, might even go a bit further and say that the “ego” is a byproduct of the ‘it’ in us. But he also knows that he’s not going to like whatever the doctor says next.  
“When you’re in a forest away from civilization, your super ego stops existing, so your id, or it, takes control.” He pauses for dramatic effect, then delivers the punch line. “Same applies to your dreams.”  
IfJared hadn’t been suffering for months, maybe he’d have enough will or patience to explain to the kind doctor how it’s not a case of “it inside us” but a “him inside it”. He doesn’t have either at the moment, and he has a feeling that Dr. Steven won’t appreciate the sentiment anyway.  
Nefertiti was a powerful queen. So powerful, that after her death, her story was erased by her own son so that people would forget about her reign. But it didn’t work, did it? Legacy remained, dug itself out of the valley of kings and right into the museum. 

Legacies are stubborn like that. You can bury them and steal them, put them hundreds of years below ground, but eventually they’ll be dug out, sometimes by “just dirt diggers”.  
Jared is good at it, at finding treasure from plain old sand. It’s no trouble for him to pull a sunken island up from 100 BC pacific and walk with those natives. He traces their lives like he’s one of their own, goes deeper and deeper until he finds a devoted son. Candir was a good mother and her son was, is, a worthy one. AndJared is not going to let him drown in a lake with white swans and blue skies. Nope, he belongs inside the rapid beating thing inJared’s chest, the one that pumps Jensen’s very own toxin through his veins and keeps him warm on cold nights.  
He can drown inJared’s blood if he wanted. 

*********************

He arrives at the island a few minutes after sunrise, choosing to be as invisible as humanly possible. If the locals find the law-breaking foreigner trying to snoop again, they’ll be less than happy; may even try to sacrifice him in the name of the snake god. The idea that people think of Jensen as a reckless monster doesn’t sit well withJared, but he knows the importance of the rumor to stay that way. If people change their perspective and find the actual being that is Jensen,Jared knows exactly what humans do to rare and interesting new species.  
That thought makes him laugh in the middle of the forest. Jensen is not a new species; the opposite in fact. But the fact still remains. Humans destroy; even gods aren’t out of the list of things they’ve robbed. Jared picks up his pace, wanting to get away from this world and into the one where only he and Jensen exist with a few hundred swans and whatever elseJared hasn’t managed to see.  
The doubt starts creeping through the cracks when the huge banyan tree comes into view. Jared thinks he knows where Jensen is, that there is a Jensen here, but what if there isn’t? What if the professionals were right when they told him that these are all just dreams; his brain playing tricks?”  
Jared shakes his head against the intruding doubts. He knows what’s here, he knows how he survived the venom of a cobra. Jensen is there, in a lake under the pedestal. Jared has to go and pull him up to the shore and make him his.  
The nagin is exactly where he last saw her, in all her graciousness, and so are the bones. The more familiarity he finds, the more his optimism grows. Which lasts up until the moment he walks up to the stone where the locals had apparently found him.  
There’s just a slab and stones, broken stairs leading to solid ground and twisted roots. He doesn’t know how to get down below. 

He spends hours looking for a gateway to another world and doesn’t find anything. It’s just an old temple made on solid soil; there’s no underground cavity, certainly no otherworldly lake. There’s no Jensen. How’s he gonna find Jensen?  
The possibility hurts. Was this all just dreams? He woke up and they’re gone? He panics, because people forget dreams. People wake up, go on with their lives, and dreams get forgotten.  
He drops his things on the ground and drops down himself, head swimming from the million different thoughts and feelings running through his mind. Just when he’s about to snap from it all, the green monster makes his entrance.

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, thanks to the artist merakieros for her extraordinary art, for giving me her time, indulging in my babbling and guiding me through the entire process. Thanks to my lovely beta gluedwithgold for being the kindest person, and to Merenwen76 for inspiring and supporting me all the way. You guys made my first RBB a beautiful experience. Thanks to the mod for keeping this challenge going.
> 
> Title credit goes to the song Right Place by White Lies  
> All mistakes are mine because I tend to fiddle too much. Enjoy <3


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